"Well, if it came to marching against the Palais-Royal as we did against the Tuileries, would you desert us?"
And then we clasped hands and looked at one another with excited eyes and parted, the artillerymen exclaiming—
"The people are rising!" While the populace repeated to one another, "The artillery is with us!"
All these rumours were floating in the air, and seemed to stop like mists at the highest buildings.
The Palais-Royal was only a hundred and fifty yards from the Louvre, in which were twenty-four pieces of artillery, twenty thousand rounds of ammunition, and out of eight hundred artillerymen six hundred were Republicans.
No scheme of conspiracy had been arranged; but it was plainly evident that, if the people rose, the artillery would support them. M. de Montalivet, brother of the minister, warned his brother, about one o'clock that afternoon, that there was a plot arranged for carrying off our guns from us. General La Fayette immediately warned Godefroy Cavaignac of the information that had been given him.
Now, we were quite willing to go with the people to manage our own guns, and incur the risks of a second revolution, as we had run the risks of the first; but the guns were, in a measure, our own property, and we felt responsible for their safe keeping, so we did not incline to have them taken out of our hands.
This rumour of a sudden attack upon the Louvre gained the readier credence as, for two or three days past, there had been much talk of a Bonapartist plot; and, although we were all ready to fight for La Fayette and the Republic, we had no intentions of risking a hair of our heads for Napoléon II. Consequently, Godefroy Cavaignac, being warned, had brought in a bale of two or three hundred cartridges, which he flung on one of the card-tables in the guardroom. Every man then proceeded to fill his pouch and pockets. When I reached the Louvre, the division had been made, but it did not matter, as my pouch had been full since the day I had been summoned to seize the Chamber.
As would be expected, we had no end of spies among us, and I could mention two in particular who received the Cross of the Légion d'honneur for having filled that honourable office in our ranks.
An hour after this distribution of cartridges they were warned at the Palais-Royal. A quarter of an hour after they had been warned there, I received a letter from Oudard, begging me, if I was at the Louvre, to go instantly to his office. I showed the letter to our comrades and asked them what I was to do.